Votes don’t always go casino backer's way, despite spending

If there’s one thing that casino referendums across the state have proved it is that money doesn’t buy votes. Communities across the commonwealth have been heading to the ballot boxes in the past several months to decide whether casinos or slots parlors can locate in their community with mixed results.

If there’s one thing that casino referendums across the state have proved it is that money doesn’t buy votes.

Communities across the commonwealth have been heading to the ballot boxes in the past several months to decide whether casinos or slots parlors can locate in their community with mixed results.

In Everett and Springfield, referendums passed early and easily. While in East Boston, West Springfield and Palmer, the anti-casino groups, who were outspent by margins of 10 to 1 in each case, rallied enough support to vote down the casino projects.

On Tuesday, voters in Milford will head to the polls in what the town clerk said she expects to be a presidential level turnout, upwards of 75 percent, to decide on the proposed casino in their community.

Campaign finance reports released this week showed Foxwoods, which proposed the $1 billion, 980,000-sqaure-foot resort-casino in Milford, spending $792,171 thus far on their campaign. With the casino-funded group, Citizens for Milford’s Future, spending another $5,000.

Casino-Free Milford’s spending totaled $13,795 of the $23,770 they’ve raised. This fundraising amount is higher than almost any other anti-casino campaign in the state, excluding No Eastie Casino in East Boston.

Organizers and experts alike agree that while millions have been spent on the campaigns around the state, the money has very little effect on the outcome.

In West Springfield, the anti-casino group spent $12,785 against Hard Rock’s $923,536, yet won the vote with 55 percent.

“Its not so much the money but the people who are working on the campaigns,” said Alan Cabot, one of the organizers of No Casino in West Springfield. “The fight is between them and their money and the dedicated people who live in town.”

Cabot said their campaign was successful because of the hours their volunteers spent knocking on doors and educating their neighbors.

“The canvassing was the most effective thing we did,” Cabot said. “It was a matter of educating people. When we spoke to people, the only thing they knew about casinos was what they’d seen advertised, but we let them understand the whole story.”

Cabot said Hard Rock spent a lot of their money on big media campaigns, like radio and television ads.

“It wasn’t as personal or connected as what we did,” Cabot said.

In Cabot’s view, the places where the casinos have passed are the places where the process was moved through quickly, like Everett and Springfield, and people weren’t educated on the issue.

Some anti-casino residents in Everett agreed that the speediness of the process was the main thing that hurt their cause.

“It happened so fast, we just got steamrolled,” said Evmorphia Stratis, an Everett woman who attempted to form an opposition group against Steve Wynn’s proposal. “It was unbelievable how much money they spent. The major thing for us was there wasn’t enough money and time to organize in opposition.”

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Wynn spent about $242,000 unopposed on the referendum vote, which passed with 86 percent of the vote in favor. The majority of his funding went to a pro-casino citizen’s group, Everett United.

“It really comes down to the sense of community,” concluded Fred Bayles, a Boston University Journalism professor who has been following the casino campaigns.

Bayles said the casinos seem to have a much “harder hill to climb” when trying to gain support for their message.

“If (the community) is happy with the status quo, I don’t see much that they can do to convince people to vote for a casino regardless of what the casino promises,” Bayles said. “Even with the promises of money, jobs and community improvement funds.”

Looking specifically at the Suffolk Downs votes, where East Boston voted against the proposal and Revere voted for it, Bayles said it reflects the sentiment of the two communities.

“In East Boston, there was a lot of sentiment against it from the start,” Bayles said. “They’re also used to fighting these sorts of things, with fighting against the airport expansion. In a town like Revere, they see it more as an economic possibility.”

Including last year and this year, Suffolk Downs spend over $2 million trying to win the referendum votes in those two communities. In East Boston, the opposition spent $23,746 where they won the vote 56 percent to 44 percent. In Revere the opposition spending totaled $4,231, with Suffolk winning the vote 59 percent to 36 percent.

At this point, Bayles and others said the upcoming vote on Tuesday in Milford is too close to call.

“They’re using the tools they have,” Bayles said. “They are outsiders and they often don’t have community support, so they’re using what they do have – money.”

Bayles said the danger of casino developers coming in and throwing around so much money to try and obtain support is that they can be seen as “carpetbaggers” coming in to buy the town.

The advice Bayles said he’d offer a developer trying to win the vote is to use local people in their advertisements.

“People’s trust has really narrowed as time goes on,” Bayles said. “They don’t trust government leaders, business or media. They trust the people they know. They trust their friends, neighbors and relatives.”

Contact Lindsay Corcoran at 508-634-7582 or lcorcoran@wickedlocal.com. Follow her on Twitter @LacorcMDN.